Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Michigan: Still #1 Among States That Shouldn't Be Expelled From The

A Special Report from our Pacific Northwest Correspondent.

Michigan: Still #1 Among States That Shouldn't Be Expelled From The Union For Gross Electoral Incompetence

Watching USC-UCLA and Florida-Arkansas last Saturday led me to understand a little better the range of emotions that a Plano East fan must have gone through in the epic 1994
game against John Tyler. It's not quite the same - I didn't done wet my britches - but it makes for a startlingly close comparison.

Switch over to Florida-Arkansas. Chris Leak throws an interception, another touchdown for Plano East. Arkansas scores, making it 17-14, Plano recovers yet another onside kick. Holy f--k yes, a shovel pass picked off and returned for a m-----f--kin' touchdown? Holy c--p, Plano East's done it! They've come from behind. Break out those celebratory Oreos, somehow we pulled this one out.

Then the Plano East-John Tyler game ends, and somewhere an announcer says "We now return to our regularly scheduled programming, currently in progress." Following the football, it's the Rush Limbaugh Show. Oh c--p! Where's the remote? I CAN'T FIND IT! So for a hour we're stuck with inane, unsupported, ramblings passing for analysis.

Everything's going great in Iraq! The SEC is the best conference in America! Democrats don't represent real Americans! "Michigan is a second place team." Nobody wants to see a rematch! Nobody could have imagined the Shi'ites and Sunnis would start fighting each other!

And on and on like that Rush would go for hours, just like Gary Danielson did.

If only we'd had video of Gary Danielson mocking Parkinson's patients or clips of Lee Corso calling someone "m-c-c-," maybe we could have politicked things in our favor. (To be honest, I'm surprised Lee Corso's never accidentally said m-c-c- when trying to say Michigan.)

Right now, it looks like the Gators are headed for the same fate as Rush Limbaugh and the GOP in the midterm elections. If the analogy holds, they'll be saying that even though they were utterly destroyed, they only lost because Ohio State was playing SEC-style football. And next fall it'll be more of the same, both in football and politics - important questions being decided not based on what's best, but on who can yell the loudest.

Mission Statement

"But do let me reiterate the spirit of Michigan.It is based upon a deathless loyalty to Michigan and all her ways; an enthusiasm that makes it second nature for Michigan men to spread the gospel of their university to the world's distant outposts; a conviction that nowhere is there a better university, in any way, than this Michigan of ours."

--Fielding H. Yost upon his retirement as Michigan's athletic director in 1940.